As part of its cultural activities, the Chatla Association for Culture and the Arts and the Kamal Zebdi-Ben M’sik Cultural Center jointly recently organized a conference on “Poetry and mysticism”, hosted by Karima Delyasse, poet and president of the Association co-organizing this event. All the speakers from the poet and researcher Salah Boussrif to the literary critic and researcher Mohamed Allout or the poet and visual artist Loubaba Laalej or the art critic and researcher Abdallah Cheikh underlined the importance of poetry and mysticism for the spirituality.
Karima Delyasse presented the main ideas of this conference on the modernization of mystical poetic experiences. Hence the choice of the theme “Poetry and mysticism”, on which the Association has been working since last year, because of its importance for the spirituality of modern poetry. “This choice is not arbitrary, we adopted it for two objective reasons: the relationship between poetry and mysticism is a close historical relationship, but also a symmetrical relationship,” she noted.
For her part, the director of the Kamal Zebdi Cultural Center, Asmaa Rifai, highlighted the objectives, aspirations and perspectives of the conference. “We decided, with our partners from the Chatla Association for Culture and the Arts, to address the theme of poetry and mysticism, by identifying the relationship between mysticism and literature in general,” he said. she explains. For her, this is a close relationship, as mystics used poetry, zajal and aphorisms to express themselves and their spiritual and existential life experiences before moving on to modern creative writings and plasticity as a form of expressive visual art.
Speaking, researcher Mohamed Allout focused his intervention on the experience of the poet Salah Boussrif in his collections “Parle que je te voir” and “Le Porteur de verre”. “In his poetic collection “Parle que je te voir”, Salah Boussrif goes beyond the symbolic thresholds of the metaphorical foundation and orients the horizon of reception towards the absolute identification of the narcissus of the poetic ego with the sea. In “The Bearer of mirror”, the metaphor of crossing mirrors takes the form of a meta-poetic language where the narcissus of the poetic ego is reflected in the heterogeneity of the mirrors of Sufi speech (Hallaj – Ibn Arabi – Suhraudi – Jalal al -Din Rumi – Hafez Shirazi – al-Nafri …),” he analyzed.
For his part, the poet and researcher Salah Boussrif indicated that the language as it is represented by the mystic, as he created it, and as he immersed himself in it, as it ‘immersed, is a language of metaphor. He states: “Mysticism, in its ascent and the stages it passes through, is a metaphorical language. It passes from one level to another, from one consciousness to another, not in the sense of consciousness which is the opposite of unconsciousness, but mystical consciousness. This is an intention, which in turn is a metaphor, a crossing, in the sense of metaphor in all its derivations of passage, path, crossing, and even penetration of the sensible, of the operation of the ‘intuition and imagination’.
Speaking at this conference, the poet and visual artist Loubaba Laalej, author of the work “Mysticity and Plasticity”, underlined the link between poetry and mysticism. “Mysticity is the direct experience of consciousness that brings to mind the unbridled imagination of the artist in the presence of this same connection making plasticity and mysticity converge. This loss of the egoic self manifests itself between the visible and the invisible, where one will unite with God and the artist with his work. This self-effacement which allows presence to act causes a transition from a normal state to the sublime relationship, the limits between exterior and interior then fade, the ego withdraws before the immensity,” she affirmed. According to Ms. Laalej, the artist’s mysticity and plasticity open up to something greater than oneself. “Mysticity is vast and colorful, I am in no way trying to show its difference with plasticity. My purpose is to describe what unites them. Plasticity is this water that infiltrates everywhere and adapts. So, it can transform the old into something new and the substance becomes part of the form.” She adds: “I abhor ritual and repetition, I have always observed with fascination the beautiful warm and starry nights of the country where I was born. I have always been hypnotized by the immensity and hoped to decode it! Boredom of a soul who dreams of the essential, curious about the meaning of life. Could understanding bring me closer to the divine? Art is vast, to limit it would be to offend its essence and destroy creative movements. The plasticity of our brain is an active force that is both artistic and mystical.
The art critic and researcher Abdallah Cheikh, for his part, examined the depth and subtlety of mystical poetry in the plural. In his speech, he highlighted the potential of poetry to transcend the boundaries between the visible and the invisible, between the real and the spiritual.
“Mystical knowledge and poetic knowledge overlap in the experience of Loubaba Laalej, because they both triumph over mysticism, the truths of which cannot be approached linguistically either in the singular or in the plural. Because words are incapable of revealing the human condition and the hidden secrets of its existence. Everything mystical and occult confirms the inability of reason and science to answer man’s deepest questions: What cannot be resolved, what cannot be known, what cannot be said , justifies Laalej’s inclination towards mysticism and surrealism as a movement of the unthinkable and the unthought,” he pointed out.
As part of its cultural activities, the Chatla Association for Culture and the Arts and the Kamal Zebdi-Ben M’sik Cultural Center jointly recently organized a conference on “Poetry and mysticism”, hosted by Karima Delyasse, poet and president of the Association co-organizing this event. All the speakers from the poet and researcher Salah Boussrif to the literary critic and researcher Mohamed Allout or the poet and visual artist Loubaba Laalej or the art critic and researcher Abdallah Cheikh underlined the importance of poetry and mysticism for the spirituality.
Karima Delyasse presented the main ideas of this conference on the modernization of mystical poetic experiences. Hence the choice of the theme “Poetry and mysticism”, on which the Association has been working since last year, because of its importance for the spirituality of modern poetry. “This choice is not arbitrary, we adopted it for two objective reasons: the relationship between poetry and mysticism is a close historical relationship, but also a symmetrical relationship,” she noted.
For her part, the director of the Kamal Zebdi Cultural Center, Asmaa Rifai, highlighted the objectives, aspirations and perspectives of the conference. “We decided, with our partners from the Chatla Association for Culture and the Arts, to address the theme of poetry and mysticism, by identifying the relationship between mysticism and literature in general,” he said. she explains. For her, this is a close relationship, as mystics used poetry, zajal and aphorisms to express themselves and their spiritual and existential life experiences before moving on to modern creative writings and plasticity as a form of expressive visual art.
Speaking, researcher Mohamed Allout focused his intervention on the experience of the poet Salah Boussrif in his collections “Parle que je te voir” and “Le Porteur de verre”. “In his poetic collection “Parle que je te voir”, Salah Boussrif goes beyond the symbolic thresholds of the metaphorical foundation and orients the horizon of reception towards the absolute identification of the narcissus of the poetic ego with the sea. In “The Bearer of mirror”, the metaphor of crossing mirrors takes the form of a meta-poetic language where the narcissus of the poetic ego is reflected in the heterogeneity of the mirrors of Sufi speech (Hallaj – Ibn Arabi – Suhraudi – Jalal al -Din Rumi – Hafez Shirazi – al-Nafri …),” he analyzed.
For his part, the poet and researcher Salah Boussrif indicated that the language as it is represented by the mystic, as he created it, and as he immersed himself in it, as it ‘immersed, is a language of metaphor. He states thus: “Mysticism, in its ascension and the stages it passes through, is a metaphorical language. It passes from one level to another, from one consciousness to another, not in the sense of consciousness which is the opposite of unconsciousness, but mystical consciousness. This is an intention, which in turn is a metaphor, a crossing, in the sense of metaphor in all its derivations of passage, path, crossing, and even penetration of the sensible, of the operation of the ‘intuition and imagination’.
Speaking at this conference, the poet and visual artist Loubaba Laalej, author of the work “Mysticity and Plasticity”, underlined the link between poetry and mysticism.
“Mysticity is the direct experience of consciousness that brings to mind the unbridled imagination of the artist in the presence of this same connection making plasticity and mysticity converge. This loss of the egoic self manifests itself between the visible and the invisible, where one will unite with God and the artist with his work. This self-effacement which allows presence to act causes a transition from a normal state to the sublime relationship, the limits between exterior and interior then fade, the ego withdraws before the immensity. she said. According to Ms. Laalej, the artist’s mysticity and plasticity open up to something greater than oneself. “Mysticity is vast and colorful, I am in no way trying to show its difference with plasticity. My purpose is to describe what unites them. Plasticity is this water that infiltrates everywhere and adapts. So, it can transform the old into something new and the substance becomes part of the form.” She adds: “I abhor ritual and repetition, I have always observed with fascination the beautiful, warm, starry nights of the country where I was born. I have always been hypnotized by the immensity and hoped to decode it! Boredom of a soul who dreams of the essential, curious about the meaning of life. Could understanding bring me closer to the divine? Art is vast, to limit it would be to offend its essence and destroy creative movements. The plasticity of our brain is an active force that is both artistic and mystical.
The art critic and researcher Abdallah Cheikh, for his part, examined the depth and subtlety of mystical poetry in the plural. In his speech, he highlighted the potential of poetry to transcend the boundaries between the visible and the invisible, between the real and the spiritual.
“Mystical knowledge and poetic knowledge overlap in the experience of Loubaba Laalej, because they both triumph over mysticism, the truths of which cannot be approached linguistically either in the singular or in the plural. Because words are incapable of revealing the human condition and the hidden secrets of its existence. Everything mystical and occult confirms the inability of reason and science to answer man’s deepest questions: What cannot be resolved, what cannot be known, what cannot be said , justifies Laalej’s inclination towards mysticism and surrealism as a movement of the unthinkable and the unthought”he stressed.
Ayoub Akil
